Hon Judith Collins, Minister of Veterans' Affairs Govt working through War Pension report

The Government is undertaking detailed costings and analysis of the Law Commission's report on the review of the War Pensions Act 1954, Veterans' Affairs Minister Judith Collins said today.

"I am pleased with progress to date on this large and complex piece of work," Ms Collins said.

The Law Commission spent nearly three years producing its detailed final report, which contained 170 recommendations to the Government. The report was presented to the Government on 1 June.

In the report the Law Commission stated that it was unable to provide detailed costing of its proposals. The Law Commission recommended that the Government "obtain rigorous costings before making decisions on the implementation of the recommendations in this report".

"The Government has accepted this recommendation and a considerable amount of work is going into determining the financial impacts of the recommendations," Ms Collins said.

"It is important that the Government considers all aspects of the report carefully to ensure that the law provides suitable support for elderly veterans as well as modern day veterans.

"In addition, proposals for changes to existing entitlements must be carefully considered to ensure that none of our elderly veterans are any worse off under any new system."

A key recommendation of the report is the introduction of new legislation with two separate schemes - one that applies to all service prior to 1 April 1974, and one that applies to veterans with qualifying service after that date.

"That a system for veterans with service after 1974 has been proposed reflects the complex needs of veterans of multiple deployments," Ms Collins said.